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Soviets put out a burning gas well with a nuclear explosion (1966) [video]
- dang 5y agoPast threads. Others? How the Soviets Put Out Oil Well Fires by Using Nuclear Bombs - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26756899 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26756899 - April 2021 (2 comments) The USSR used a nuclear charge to stop a gas well fire in 1966 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8397750 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8397750 - Oct 2014 (124 comments)
- yitchelle 5y agoWhile it might slow down the site, is it possible for a list of previous threads to added by a bot?
- dang 5y agoIn principle yes, but it's good to have someone look over the previous thread to make sure it's interesting. Also, there are often previous related threads which don't have similar titles or URLs and yet relate to the same story—hard for a bot to find those. I think maybe coming up with an initial list mechanically and then having a way for community members to curate it may be the sweet spot.
- dredmorbius 5y ago"Statistically improbable phrases" are one way to branch such searchs. So, the bot looks for the URL and title matches, then looks for tuples within those sets (2--3 word chains seems to be a sweet spot), and which of those seem to cluster on those aprticular articles and comments, but not a tremendous number of others. "Operation Trojan Shield" would be a good match for the An0m sting being discussed elsewhere. "The FBI" or "First Amendment", though not highly prevalent, are still sufficiently used elsewhere that they probably would not be. Someone would have to keep tally of the tuples, though. (Tiptoe Through the Tuples...)
- dang 5y agoWe've worked on things like this in the past without success. Even just saving the html of the web pages that get submitted to HN is a nontrivial problem, and extracting text from them for similarity searches even more so. If people wanted to work on this as an open-source thing, we'd be open to supporting it somehow, but it'll be quite a while before we get back to working on the problem at this level ourselves. I think relying on the community to co-curate related-links lists (and duplicates) is likely a better and easier strategy.
- simonebrunozzi 5y agoHey dang, I always find these mentions to past threads particularly useful. Should it become a small feature to add to HN? Perhaps a sticky comment on top of the others?
- chrismorgan 5y agoIf you only want to spend one minute on it, footage of the actual event starts at about 15:52 and is followed immediately by an animated diagram of how it worked (detonation 1.5km below the surface which collapsed the well from the side).
- system2 5y agoThe CC works for English. It is not only diagrams, there is actual attempts too. Every second of it is informative.
- killjoywashere 5y agoWadsworth point is 15:55
- iJohnDoe 5y agoFires of Kuwait. IMAX film. Highly recommended. Fascinating all the methods they used to extinguish the oil well fires that Saddam Hussein ordered to be set on fire. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fires_of_Kuwait https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fires_of_Kuwait
- cma 5y agoIt is really good, the full thing is on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aM-ZpC0luvA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aM-ZpC0luvA The older thread recommended Lessons of Darkness (I haven't watched it yet): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lessons_of_Darkness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lessons_of_Darkness
- yumraj 5y ago> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aM-ZpC0luvA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aM-ZpC0luvA Saw bits of it, will watch more later - it does look beautiful and well done. However, the thing that struck me the most is that no one is wearing gas masks. It must have been stinking and pretty harmful, but I guess that is the oil and gas industry..
- GekkePrutser 5y agoIt was also the 60s. Asbestos was still a thing, as was leaded fuel, ubiquitous smoking etc
- avhon1 5y agoThe linked film, "The Fires of Kuwait", documents events that took place in 1991.
- perl4ever 5y agoThis topic makes me think of: "underground coal-seam fires are the most persistent fires on Earth and can burn for thousands of years, like Burning Mountain in Australia" "The oldest coal fire in China is in Baijigou (白芨沟, in Dawukou District of Shizuishan City, Ningxia) and is said to have been burning since the Qing Dynasty (before 1912)." "The Centralia mine fire is a coal-seam fire that has been burning underneath the borough of Centralia, Pennsylvania, United States, since at least May 27, 1962" "In 1979, locals became aware of the scale of the problem when a gas-station owner, then-mayor John Coddington, inserted a dipstick into one of his underground tanks to check the fuel level. When he withdrew it, it seemed hot. He lowered a thermometer into the tank on a string and was shocked to discover that the temperature of the gasoline in the tank was 172 °F" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal-seam_fire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal-seam_fire
- jareklupinski 5y ago@17:13 Russian narrator: Radiatsy..... nyet. English closed captions: Radiation levels are within natural background limits.
- tim333 5y agoMight have taken a little while for gases to get up to the surface.
- forgetfulness 5y agoThe geysers were showing in the video, there was hot gas outpouring from the ground everywhere. That makes it difficult to believe that there was no radiation leak.
- cheschire 5y ago3.6 roentgen?
- GekkePrutser 5y agoNot great, not terrible
- ranger207 5y agoThe American peaceful nuclear explosion program was called Project Plowshare[0] and seems to have been mostly tests, with practical applications to come later. In contrast, the Soviet Nuclear Explosions for the National Economy[1] claims almost a hundred non-testing uses. Most likely both programs were ultimately for weapons development, but it's interesting that the Soviets did manage to actually use some explosions for real non-weapon uses, while the American program never went that far. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Plowshare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Plowshare [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_Explosions_for_the_National_Economy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_Explosions_for_the_Nat...
- Lammy 5y agoCheck out https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28205620 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28205620
- throw63738 5y agoThere was real hype about terraforming and redirecting rivers from North to South.
- adwww 5y agonothing could possibly have gone wrong there...
- joconde 5y agoHow do we avoid fallout in that case?
- tantalor 5y agoUnderground detonation.
- xeromal 5y agoA lot of fallout comes from detonating over the ground so that the force smacks into earth and spins up a ton of debris which is breathed in and causes all those nasty diseases. How long a place is irradiated is pretty much tied to how long those particulates float around causing mayhem. After that, sweeping up all the debris and containing it is a solid way of preparing the area for humans again.
- northernexposur 5y agoNeat, but what a waste. They needed a Red Adairski.
- system2 5y agoThey drilled another pipe close by right after that explosion.
- donatj 5y agoThe people in the comments of the video purporting it’s “lack of propaganda” weird me out. You’re just frighteningly bad at detecting propaganda. The entire video, and the entire government program that spurred the video were propaganda. The entire Soviet system only released information through a strong propaganda filter. There was simply no room for any action of the government to be reflected poorly. These tests by and large ended up radiating populations and not telling them.
- qbasic_forever 5y agoDo you think American nuclear tests and news reels from the era were propaganda free? This was an active natural gas well and drilling area. No one was living near it--it would have been a nightmare of potential deadly gas exposure to do so, even ignoring the nuclear blast. The blast was 1000+ meters underground so no cloud or fallout was thrown into the air. The really dangerous radioisotopes from most bombs have a half life less than a decade so everything underground is likely pretty benign now. But again, no one is going to be digging a hole 1000 meters down into a former natural gas well to go live there.
- masswerk 5y agoIt's an extremely well made film – and extremely effective propaganda. Having seen this as part of the intended audience, you're probably proud of your country and eager to contribute, and at ease with the technology involved.
- anticodon 5y ago
- simonebrunozzi 5y agoThe animation at 16:30 is beautifully designed.
- anderson1993 5y agothis is the most soviet thing a soviet could soviet.
- mancy00 5y ago"The most peaceful and helpful nuclear explosion " lol
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- wruza 5y agoSoviet, propaganda, whatever. These people have done a breathtaking job at the cutting edge of technology backed by paper and pencil. Let’s appreciate that for a minute.
- ehnto 5y agoThe discordant musical score in parts adds a layer of eeriness that's quite effective, you certainly don't see it in pop cinema. It's genuinely uncomfortable.
- GekkePrutser 5y agoWouldn't this cause radiological pollution in the gas itself, making it useless? At least for sale to foreign countries...
- foobarian 5y agoGiven that the fire burned for over two years, I was wondering why they didn't drop some kind of bell over the well and piped the gas somewhere useful. It certainly seems doable within a couple of months. Of course I'm sure nobody expected the fire to resist for so long.
- ChrisMarshallNY 5y agoThat's a wild story! Thanks so much for sharing it. I suspect that it also doubled as a test of a low-yield warhead.